Sermons, Articles, and Other Things

James obviously had information about what life was like in the gatherings of Christians to which he sent this letter. Instead of being places of peace and fellowship they were the opposite. He wants them to consider where they are and how they arrived there, and also what one of the major consequences was. And he does this by asking straightforward questions, by getting them to think about their situation. There is an important historical lesson here. Often the impression is given that the New Testament church was wonderful for a long time. Certainly, we see a happy church described in Acts 2:42 with its mention of its four activities of continuing in the apostles’ doctrine, in fellowship, in breaking of bread and in prayers. Yet we should ask, ‘How long did this harmony last for?’ The answer is that it did not last for long, as we can read in the Book of Acts with the accounts of the failure to look after needy widows and the attempted deceit of Ananias and Sapphira. And we are...

So far in this letter we have seen that Paul mentions several blessings of the work of the Spirit. He mentioned in 1:13-14 that all believers have been sealed by the Spirit – he is the divine seal of ownership – and he works in them as the earnest in order to provide foretastes of the experience of the eternal world. Paul then mentioned three ways in which they knew those foretastes. First, he has given his people permanent access to the presence of God, which is a great privilege that they enjoy because of Jesus. Second, Paul prayed that they would know the resurrection power of the Spirit in order to become like Jesus, and realise the hope to which they were called – we could say that this refers to their sanctification. Third, Paul prayed that they would be strengthened by the Spirit in order to grow in their intellectual and experimental awareness of the amazing love of Jesus, which the apostle explained by using the four dimensions of length, breadth, depth and height. It is ...

The obvious deduction that we can make from this prayer is that we cannot judge the profundity of a prayer by its length. We see from Paul’s words that a short prayer can be very profound. Moreover, we can see that a real prayer need not have many petitions – this prayer has two, one beginning in verse 16 and the other towards the end of verse 17. Further, each petition has a desired answer. The first petition is ‘that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being’, and the answer he wants is ‘that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith’. The second petition is ‘that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge’, and the desired answer is ‘that you may be filled with all the fullness of God’. Paul tells us that he had a reason for making this pray...

The word translated restoration here can be rendered in different ways, which means it can have a variety of meanings. Apparently, the word was used to describe the recovery that is connected to repentance and it was often even used to describe a sinner’s initial conversion. The believer’s initial repentance is not the meaning in the psalm, yet that possible translation is a reminder that the Christian life usually begins with repentance, and thereafter becomes a life of repentance. Repentance Repentance for our sins is often assumed to be a sign of weakness whereas in reality it is a sign of wisdom. It reveals that something precious has taken place in a person’s heart, which is that the God of grace has shown the individual his or her spiritual condition. But he has revealed the sin in such a manner that makes the individual focus on the Shepherd. Repentance takes place in the light of the cross. Although it was a dark place when Jesus literally suffered there, it is a place o...